The Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld the death sentence imposed on a woman and her five relatives by Lady Justice Florence Muchemi.
The three appellate judges Philip Waki, Roselyn Nambuye and Patrick Kiage asserted that the killing of David Macharia on June 12, 2004 was a premeditated cold-blood killing.
The judges upheld the sentence against the wife Anne Waithera Macharia, her sister Ruth Wanjiru Maina, David Njoroge Kimotho, Joseph Kinyuru Kirumbi, Eliud Kimani Mwai and her son Joseph Macharia Maina.
The court established that Ms Waithera plotted the killing of her husband after he married a second wife.
It was stated that is was allegedly driven by greed for her husband’s property.
The judges noted that: “when marriage and family become a mortal peril for spouses, and children kill their parents without blinking, something of our humanity is lost and the law must be deployed and enforced to express our collective horror, revulsion and outrage.
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“it is for such cold-hearted killers that the penalty of death was legislated and for whom the courts must declare it. The same was properly imposed and we have no reason to disturb it. We confirm and uphold it,” the judges affirmed.
According to the report, the six killed Macharia, who was milking his cows at Kamae in Lari division, Kiambu County, by slashing his neck with a panga.
They then wrapped his body in blankets, stashed it in two sacks and went ahead to dispose it at a waterfall deep in a forest.
The judges described the killing of Macharia, who lived in Kiambu County, as: “a dark mix of jealousy, rage, greed, impatience and pure hatred compounded to turn the marital space into a deadly trap and to convert filial fealty into a grossly cruel patricide.”
The deceased is claimed to have taken a second wife Hannah Wambui following continuous marital wrangles that he had with his first wife.
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